The scholarship equivalent of Yale donning a burqa to suppress the temptations its immodesty might otherwise inspire
August 13th, 2009 6:10 am
Pajamas Media/Roger Kimball
EXCERPT
While everyone (well, not quite everyone) has been scurrying around worrying about not-so-gradual government take over of health care and other large swathes of the economy, the sinister pas-de-deux of Islamism, on the hand, and Western capitulation, on the other, proceeds under the radar in its slow but seemingly inexorable dance.The latest news from this front comes to us from the ivy-covered eyrie of Yale University. The venerable Yale University Press had contracted to publish a book called The Cartoons That Shook the World, i.e., the cartoons of Mohammed published in September 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.Id like to second the desideratum expressed by the British journalist Charles Moore at the time: I wish, Moore wrote in the Telegraph, someone would mention the word that dominates Western culture in the face of militant Islam fear. And then I wish someone would face it down.Is Yale stepping up to the plate? Good idea! you say. About time someone had the courage to investigate that episode of insanity. I mean, really: you publish a handful of satirical cartoons and then adherents of the ostentatiously misnamed religion of peace go postal, start burning down Danish embassies across the globe, issuing death threats to the cartoonists, etc.Dream on. This is contemporary academia, after all. No, after consulting two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, that great bastion of intellectual light, the Yale University Press, decided to publish a book about the Danish cartoons without the Danish cartoons.
SNIP
Really? Why was it difficult? Mr. Donatich presides over part of an academic institution whose motto is lux et veritas, light and truth. His difficult decision announced to the world that his motto timiditas et deditio: cowardice and surrender. He told the Times that he bravely published an unauthorized biography about Thailands current monarch, but when it came to publishing representations of a 7th-century religious fanatic there he drew the line: when it came between that and blood on my hands, he said there was no question.
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August 13th, 2009 6:10 am
Pajamas Media/Roger Kimball
EXCERPT
While everyone (well, not quite everyone) has been scurrying around worrying about not-so-gradual government take over of health care and other large swathes of the economy, the sinister pas-de-deux of Islamism, on the hand, and Western capitulation, on the other, proceeds under the radar in its slow but seemingly inexorable dance.The latest news from this front comes to us from the ivy-covered eyrie of Yale University. The venerable Yale University Press had contracted to publish a book called The Cartoons That Shook the World, i.e., the cartoons of Mohammed published in September 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.Id like to second the desideratum expressed by the British journalist Charles Moore at the time: I wish, Moore wrote in the Telegraph, someone would mention the word that dominates Western culture in the face of militant Islam fear. And then I wish someone would face it down.Is Yale stepping up to the plate? Good idea! you say. About time someone had the courage to investigate that episode of insanity. I mean, really: you publish a handful of satirical cartoons and then adherents of the ostentatiously misnamed religion of peace go postal, start burning down Danish embassies across the globe, issuing death threats to the cartoonists, etc.Dream on. This is contemporary academia, after all. No, after consulting two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, that great bastion of intellectual light, the Yale University Press, decided to publish a book about the Danish cartoons without the Danish cartoons.
SNIP
Really? Why was it difficult? Mr. Donatich presides over part of an academic institution whose motto is lux et veritas, light and truth. His difficult decision announced to the world that his motto timiditas et deditio: cowardice and surrender. He told the Times that he bravely published an unauthorized biography about Thailands current monarch, but when it came to publishing representations of a 7th-century religious fanatic there he drew the line: when it came between that and blood on my hands, he said there was no question.
END EXCERPT
